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The latest CMS news from around the world

We try to stay hip to the funk with what's going on in the world with new CMS releases and other related news. But if we happened to miss something that you think should be here, then feel free to suggest it!

Content Management News and Events

Is WordPress Killing Web Design? – This wasn’t as much a discussion about WordPress as much as CMS’s themselves. The discussion revolved around the pros/cons of themes, and how we, as designers, have gotten lazy at creatively laying out content within the “editable area”

R.I.P. Content Management System – This panel’s speaker was Dries Buytaert who created Drupal. Mostly it was just a presentation on Drupal and how it is being used by developers to create really complex, social websites. Coincidentally, we also were on the same plane as Dries on the way home.

ExpressionEngine 2.0: Total Domination – This one was our favorite. Hosted by a variety of different EE community members, it started with a simple overview of what EE is and how it works. Then progressed down the line of panelists with helpful tips starting with simple theming tips, and ending with complex plugins and whatnot.

SXSW was a completely new experience for us and certainly CMS’s are a big part of what the “interactive” space is involved with. We visited with some of the vendors who were hawking their new CMS’s, we got to meet people we’d met in CMS forums, and we shared a few laughs with fellow designers/developers about the joys/pains of working with them.

We’ll be attending the SXSW Interactive conference and attending some sessions related to ExpressionEngine, Drupal and WordPress. We’ll see if we have anything to report back to you after we get back. Feel free to send us an email if you’re also planning to be there!

We haven’t heard much from the Jaws CMS since we added them to our site. So it’s good to see that they are still alive and kicking! This release fixes the CMS for newer versions of PHP and cleans up all of the libraries and languages that are included with the system.

Elgg is a popular social networking CMS platform that allows users to create custom profiles, notifications, blogs, as well as upload media and files for sharing. The 1.7 release focuses mostly on refining and upgrading the backend of the platform including a functional REST API, full text search, and database improvements. The creators say that the CMS is gaining momentum and popularity in the recent months.

A new post over at the WordPress Dev Blog, and some information dug up by WP Beginner reveals some of the most exciting upcoming features in WordPress 3.0.

First off, WordPress MU (or “multi-user” will be merging with WordPress core. This basically means that you can set up multiple WordPress sites on one install. Second, custom post types will be easily added, so for example along with Posts, Pages, and Media, you could add another kind of content. This will be big for WordPress’ CMS capabilities.

Third, WooThemes has agreed to donate their custom navigation building plugin to be included as a part of the core. It will help mix Pages, Categories, Tags, Posts, and external links all into one easily editable menu. Fourth, there will be a new default theme, appropriately titled “2010”. This apparently means that there will be a new default theme every year. To find out more about these new features and others, head over to WP Beginner’s article.

We’ve posted the first of a few reviews we’ve got in the works. This one is for Preation’s Eden Platform, a newer CMS that is focused on personal and small businesses primarily. Check it out, and if you’ve used it before, give it a review!

Not a ton of huge news for CMS’s that we’re following currently, but enough to warrant a quick clean-up post for a few of them: WordPress released version 2.9.2 which is a security release that fixes a problem for logged in users being able to see other’s trash bins. Symphony announced upcoming plans for version 2.1. ExpressionEngine released another round of public betas today that clean up outstanding issues. And remember kids, World Plone Day is coming up on April 28th.

Anybody heard of Harmony? It looks like a Ruby On Rails based CMS that is currently in beta. We just saw some first Twitter postings about it and have been checking out the website. It looks like a sweet interface that would be fun to work in while also being nicely functional. Worth checking out, we’ll let you know more when as they tell us more!

A well written article similar in nature to our own How to choose a CMS has been written over at the website Webmaster format. The article gives some good advice about how it can be a “make or break decision” as to which one you choose. It outlines the problem well with some do’s, don’ts and a little bit about defining your needs.

The guys at Monk Development have been hard at work. A brand new 3.2.6 version of the “total church web solution” named Ekklesia 360 comes with brand new features: a new uploader, embedded video support, and a WYSIWYG image manager as well as 90 other features, improvements, and fixes. In addition, they’re doing a soft launch of Church Website Optimizer, a new service for ministries that could use some help on their websites.

Security update 0.7.17 has been issued for users of the e107 CMS. It effects all users of the CMS and they recommend updating as soon as possible. The nasty exploit hit their own website as well, and the hackers tried to repoint the download links for the CMS to compromised versions. All has been cleaned up, but beware if you’re running any old versions!

Just in case WordPress.org, WordPress.com, and Automattic.com weren’t enough, the WordPress guys have now launched The WordPress Foundation. An organization dedicated to preserving free access to the projects that they support and creating a stable platform for web publishing for generations to come. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

While we usually shy away from posting about Alpha, Beta and Omega releases (just kidding on the last one) It’s pretty big news that the Drupal 7 Alpha is now available for testing. This is the first progress update we’ve heard for awhile and this is a huge update to the popular CMS with new functionality like new user interface, custom fields, image handling, and an update manager. More soon…

After a long time with no news, Telligent’s ASP.NET CMS has been released as open source. While it has been popular among a large amount of developers, it’s creators have let the project slow down almost to a halt. With talk on their blog about “community members that stepped up and offered to help shepherd the project” its pretty obvious that it won’t be getting that much more loving attention from the company itself.

There is now an official directory for all sorts of Radiant CMS extensions for almost any kind of need. The new site provides extension authors a chance to upload their work and show themselves as being available for hire. If you’re not familiar with it, Radiant is a Ruby on Rails no-fluff, open source content management system designed for small teams, check it out.